


A plan for a plan.

by holograms



Category: Whiplash (2014)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Discussion of Abortion, F/M, Female Andrew, M/M, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 12:21:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3977809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holograms/pseuds/holograms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The decision is simple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A plan for a plan.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so let me say up front that this is not like my normal stuff. I was (still am) apprehensive about posting this because well, I was anxious about applying such a trope to a fandom where it is such a stretch from canon. However, doing this topic with cisfemale Andrew/cismale Fletcher became my challenge (because I can never say no to outlandish AUs) and a 800-word drunken drabble turned into this 2,900-word...whatever it is. So, yeah.
> 
>  _Do_ mind the tags: this fic does involve a character getting an abortion and discussion about it. If that isn't your thing or it upsets you, then maybe you should skip this.
> 
> Content notes: unplanned pregancy, abortion, past/possible current abusive behavior, light BDSM, non-explicit sex, misogynist language, gender issues, and uh...I think that's it?
> 
> All that said, super big thanks to [SplitCinnamon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SplitCinnamon/pseuds/SplitCinnamon) and [andrewneimansir](http://andrewneimansir.tumblr.com) who read over an earlier draft of this and gave me lots of feedback to fix parts. So appreciated, you are great, thank you darlings ♥

In retrospect, her first thought should have been more concerned.

Yet, as Andrea sits on the edge of the bathtub and sees two blue lines appear on a pregnancy test, she sighs in frustration. 

Well, this is inconvenient.

If anything, she’s annoyed. They’ve been careful. Fletcher is meticulous about making sure she takes her birth control and they almost always use condoms — she supposes it’s the _almost always_ that’s the reason for this problem. But still. 

Frankly, she’s surprised she could even become knocked up — she treats her body so poorly, and he’s such an old miserable bastard it's a miracle he could be the source of any life at all.

She wonders why her body has betrayed her. Couldn’t her body know that she doesn’t want this?

 

 

She takes two more tests after the first one, just to be sure (they were all positive, and she lines them up in neat rows on the counter next to the straight razor that Fletcher uses every morning to shave his head). She gathers up the tests and packaging and shoves them in her bag, because leaving them in the apartment is just asking for trouble. She is to know this fate alone; that's the reason why she waited until Fletcher had left for the day to do this.

When she’s two blocks away from Fletcher’s apartment she tosses all of it in a trashcan outside a convenience store, trying to be discreet as possible as she rids herself of this secret. She walks briskly away afterwards. Nobody notices. Nobody cares.

She sends a simple text to Fletcher: _might be late to rehearsal I have a thing to do._ She doesn’t give him an explanation. She doesn’t have to anymore — he’s too involved in her life to threaten to cut ties.

Sure enough, she feels the buzz of his reply a few minutes later. _Why do I even bother with you?_

Smiling, she quickly types out her reply, short and sweet. _Because._

 _Your smugness isn’t cute,_ he says, and Andrea knows that’s a lie because on multiple occasions he’s expressed otherwise. She waits as she sees that he’s typing a follow-up response. _Show up whenever you’re done with whatever the fuck you’re doing that’s more important than being here._

He’s become so predictable.

 

 

Fletcher understands her best, and there’s nobody else who has bothered to understand him other than her. So, the progression of their relationship had been simple enough: once you’ve fucked with someone enough you end up fucking them. His courtship consisted of slapping her in the face and throwing a chair at her head — how romantic. Her seduction of him was that of intrigue, where she drummed until her hands bled and outshone everyone else, committing to jazz — by extension, him — in an unholy devotion that he couldn’t _not_ possess.

Everyone suspected they were sleeping together anyway so they might as well live up to expectations, she had told him. He had grumbled at her and called her, “feisty slut,” but he had dipped his head down to kiss her and slipped his hand up her shirt anyway.

And she takes any opportunity to make herself more compulsory to Fletcher.

Making him dependent on her has been one of her best achievements (and she’s had quite a few achievements, if she does say so herself). He disguises his interest in her with a façade of indifference, but she knows how jittery he gets when he wants her. A lot of times he fucks her hard, harsh and severe, where they grab and hit and decorate each other with bruises, little love notes of their making. Other times, it’s slow and deliberate, her teasing him until he chokes out desperate pleads. She can’t describe why she wants this man who’s more than her age twice over, but it’s something that she can’t quit. It’s not so much about attraction than it is one appetite satisfying the other.

Once, she had been told that his bark was worse than his bite. Now, she doesn’t know if his bite has lessened, or if he doesn’t try as hard because she’s so used to it. On one breath he’ll insult her but on the next he’ll praise. She’s glad he never calls her pretty or beautiful or anything else like that, because she’s not by any means — her tall lanky form with too strong of arms; a mess of curly hair that she can’t bother to manage; and her general carelessness of her appearance, with chapped lips, her infrequent shaving, and her insistence to not wear makeup to cover the scars on her face from a car accident. If he did, it would make her seem _less_ to him _,_ like she’s just some meaningless thing to fuck and not the supreme being of his pedagogy.  His only.

 

 

The clinic confirms it: pregnant, eight weeks. On the ultrasound it looks like no more than a blob. She feels no attachment that some women speak of (although, she had an inkling of worry that there would’ve been, but no, thank fuck).

She’s given a few options for the next course of action.

The decision is simple. Carrying to term would be impossible with which the intensity that she drums. She already pushes her body to its maximum output and a pregnancy would just impede on her abilities, until it got to the point where she couldn’t perform at all (she imagines herself trying to thrash at her drum kit with a round belly in her way and god, it’s a nightmare). That alone makes her content with her choice.

But even if she did keep it, even if she did take a few months off until she was free of the thing inside her, the outcomes from that would be bad, too. Fletcher would be an awful father — he already _is_ one, an absent father for another kid, one he hasn’t seen in over twenty years. Andrea knows that she would be a terrible mother — she has more important things to do in her life and would end up leaving it for someone else to take care of (just like her own mother did). And even without their influence, if she were to give it up for adoption, it would probably be messed up because it would inherit their insanities. The child would have no chance with them.

Her appointment for the abortion is at the end of the week. The nurse tells her that she needs to bring someone with her to make sure that she can get home safely after the procedure. She suggests that maybe the father could come. “Having the support of your partner is often comforting,” she adds.

When Andrea starts laughing, she can’t stop. Fletcher would be anything but a comfort.

 

 

Because he’ll never know about this, Fletcher is not an option to escort her home in her doped-up state after their undeveloped baby is ripped from her body. For a brief moment Andrea considers asking her dad to drive up because she could probably use the parental comfort, but she knows what would happen if she admit her mistake to him. He’d convince her to keep it, and that he’d raise the Fletcher-Neiman spawn, try to make sure it grows up right in a jazz-free environment. That's not an option, though.

There isn’t anybody else; she’s eliminated everyone and everything in her life that’s a distraction.

Oh—there is one person.

Andrea thumbs through her contacts and calls, and thankfully she answers.

“Hey, Nicole,” Andrea says. “I need a favor.”

  

 

She tells Fletcher that she’s going to visit her father for the weekend. It’s an easy lie, and he doesn’t ask any follow up questions — it’s understood by both that they sometimes they need to get away from each other.

Andrea tells Nicole that she doesn’t have to be at the clinic until after it’s over, but Nicole insists that she’s there before for moral support. It’s a lot more that Andrea would do as an ex-girlfriend.

They meet at the clinic and after Andrea signs in they sit in uncomfortable plastic chairs and wait for Andrea’s name to be called. After awhile Nicole asks, “I assume this wasn’t planned?” and Andrea can’t help but roll her eyes and give a sweeping gesture to the room as if to indicate, _look where we are_ , and Nicole nods and says, “Right, of course,” and looks away from Andrea, downcast.

No, it wasn’t a plan. A progeny is not part of the plan that Andrea had mapped out with Fletcher, a plan that they had composed one night a few weeks after the JVC Jazz Festival when it was evident that Andrea Neiman’s name was catching flame among the right circles.

Andrea fiddles with the plastic ID bracelet on her wrist, and Nicole stares for too long at the others in the room, before long the uneasy silence between them is too much.

“So…you aren’t a lesbian?” Nicole asks. It’s obviously the question she’s been dying to ask. Andrea looks up from her wrist, and immediately Nicole starts to backtrack, “Sorry, that was rude, I—”

“It’s okay,” Andrea says. “Bisexual. I guess.” It’s a better descriptor than what she really thinks: an unhealthy attraction to people she shouldn’t be with, instead of nice girls—nice _people_ like Nicole.

“Oh.” Nicole tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Cool.” The silence again becomes awkward and Andrea feels the need to fill it.

“I just don’t have the time, and it would take away from my career,” Andrea explains, answering an unasked question. “It’s already hard enough to be taken seriously as a drummer who's also a woman.”

“Yes, I remember.” Nicole glances over at Andrea. “You don’t need anything to keep you from being _great._ ”

The veiled insult stings. She feels tears start to form and fuck, she hates that. She would blame the hormones but she knows that emotions always come about at stupid times like this when she can’t compartmentalize her feelings.

She must not hide her hurt too well because Nicole immediately backs off and her face softens as she apologizes, “I’m sorry, I know this is difficult.” Nicole reaches over to slide her hand in hers. Andrea feels like jerking her hand away — she doesn’t need the sympathy — but it stops the prickling in her chest, so she lets it be.

“You don’t have to do this, Andy.” She rubs circles on the top of Andrea’s hand, careful not to touch the blistered webbing between thumb and forefinger. Andrea looks over to her and remembers why she had fancied her — Nicole is sweet and kind and full of hope, everything she is not. “You’re allowed to not be perfect.”

For a moment she contemplates keeping it, because she has had an unwavering certainty of what to do since she’s found out, and it’s such a permanent thing that it’s only fair that all avenues be reviewed. Having the kid wouldn’t be done in an effort to _fix_ them — there’s no hope for that. It could be a way to ensure that Fletcher would stay around and wouldn’t leave when a younger, more talented musician came along. But that means that Andrea would also be trapped to him too, and that would hinder her own personal plan — one other than the plan she has with Fletcher. 

(Andrea’s plan: stay until she doesn’t — whether that be disappearing in the middle of the night and not telling him where she goes, him dying, or her dying a junkie’s death and being immortalized as one of those great artists who tragically died too young.)

But no, Nicole is wrong — she _has_ to be perfect. She’s worked too hard, devoted her entire life to drumming. Having children is not for her, not for people with a purpose in life. It’s for people like Nicole, she thinks as an afterthought.

“I don’t have any other choice,” she says, her mind made up.

 

 

The procedure is simple, and she doesn’t remember it — they put her under anesthesia and she wakes up in a recovery room no longer pregnant. The only indication anything happened is a dazed feeling and a cramp in her lower stomach.

An hour later, she’s sent home with a page of instructions and prescriptions for antibiotics and a narcotic for possible pain.

“Wait,” she says to Nicole when they go outside. She tears up the prescription for the narcotic and lets the pieces flutter into the garbage can. She doesn’t need a reason to fuck up her life more while she’s trying to fix another thing.

Afterward, Nicole is good to her, too good. She lets Andrea lean her head on her shoulder in the cab ride to her apartment (because Andrea doesn’t have a place of her own anymore, she’s living fully with Fletcher), and she helps her up the stairs because her legs are still surprisingly wobbly.

Nicole sets Andrea on the couch, wraps a blanket around her and kisses her forehead. “I’ll be right back,” she says. A few minutes later she returns with a tray carrying the antibiotic and a Tylenol, a two cups of tea, and a plate of cookies.

“There,” Nicole says. She sits next to Andrea and curls her legs under her. “You’ll be okay.”

Andrea considers telling Nicole not to worry her pretty little head about her, because she’s already okay. No remorse, it was for the best, and yes she really is that cold of a bitch that Nicole thinks her to be.

But Andrea knows that Nicole likes to feel that she’s helping her, so she lets her suggest a movie for them to watch while they have the cookies and tea she prepared.

 

 

She wakes up the next day late in the afternoon, lying next to Nicole in Nicole’s bed — something that never happened while they were dating. They never had got that far. As Andrea observes her peaceful sleeping form, she thinks about how it would have been with her. It would have been nice for a while, but Andrea knows her callousness would have worn Nicole down eventually.

Andrea muses on this as she staggers into the bathroom.

There’s light spotting of blood in her underwear. She’s not surprised, she had been warned this would happen. She rummages in the cabinet and finds a maxi-pad to wear.

She quietly pulls on her jeans and puts on her shoes, and packs the small amount of stuff she brought with her. Before she leaves, she writes a note for Nicole ( _t_ _hanks, because you didn’t have to, I’ll be okay_ ), and then she takes the bus for home.

 

 

Fletcher welcomes her home without fanfare.

“Back already?”

“My cousins were there. You know how much I hate them.” Andrea had thought about what to say on the ride from Nicole’s. “My dad says hi,” she adds. She strides across the room and sits down next to him on the couch — warily, there’s still a small twinge of pain — and sets her bag down on the floor.

He scoffs and looks at her skeptically. “It’s doubtful Jimmy Neiman said anything to me.”

That’s true. Even if it isn’t a fabrication and she had gone to see her dad, he never would have sent well wishes to Fletcher.

Fletcher lets out a long exhale and pats her thigh. “Want to order pizza from that place you like?”

Andrea nods. She takes that as his way of saying he’s glad she’s back.

  

 

That night in bed she offers to blow him, hoping that would stave him off from suggesting other activities, but he brushes away her touch and turns off the light. He slides up behind her, his front to her back, and throws an arm over her middle — something he does that’s not common but not rare.

Andrea can tell he’s tense by the way his fingers tap out a disjointed rhythm on her skin. “You could have told me,” he says into her shoulder.

“Told you what?” she asks, voice muffled by the pillow. 

“Don’t play dumb with me,” he scolds. “You know better.”

Of course he’d find out, he always knows everything about her. Andrea turns over so she faces him. From the streetlight streaming in from the window, she can see that his expression is rigid — brows furrowed together, mouth a flat line. “How did you find out?”

“Your bank statement,” he says. “Payment to Planned Parenthood earlier in the week, then again yesterday. I didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to it figure out.”

“Oh,” she says. She forgot about that part in her cover up. He manages her account, because she can’t be bothered to deal with people for payments for gigs.

“That, plus the fact you’ve been retching your guts up every morning for a week and a half. It’s a lovely sound to wake up to.”

Andrea had thought she was doing a good job at hiding it. “Sorry.”

They’re silent for a few minutes, and Andrea thinks that maybe that’s the end of it. But when she’s about to close her eyes and commit to falling asleep, Fletcher mumbles, “How do you feel?”

“Fine. Just cramping a little.” 

“That’s not what I meant.”

She figures he wants her to say she feels awful, like a murder. But instead she says— 

“I’m relieved.” 

There’s a pause, and he says, “Me too.” His voice is miserable and wretched, just like him, and Andrea knows she made the right choice. 

Two wrongs can’t make a right.

**Author's Note:**

> In this, I think Andrea of being demisexual but she wouldn't know the terminology/care about labels that aren't "best drummer ever."
> 
> If you made it this far, thank you for reading and indulging me in this trip into AU-land. Feedback is cool and appreciated :)


End file.
